Help Moms in Need this Mother’s Day

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We are participating as a collection site for Safe Haven Family Shelter. Your donation to Movers for Moms® helps mothers in need create a better life for themselves and their families. Your generous donation will benefit moms staying at the Safe Haven Family Shelter. Safe Haven is the only homeless shelter in Middle Tennessee that keeps the families together while they move from homelessness to housing and self-sufficiency.

Items needed: 

  • New baby products

  • New linens and home goods (such a bed sheets and cookware)

  • New toiletry, health, and paper goods (such as paper towels and shampoo) Items

Not accepted:

  • Any opened, used items

  • Any cleaning products containing flammable liquids

Please place donations in the  labeled box at the desk in the lobby! 

Staff News

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Cynthia Rodgers leaves April 7th on a mission trip to the mountains of China. She will be gone for two weeks as she works with widows and orphans. Yolanda Webb will be the substitute teacher working with Danielle in the Researchers Class.

Kudos to Heather Marshall and Cindy Ligon who will both be presenting workshops at the Nashville Area Association for the Education of Young Children’s Conference on April 8th.

Over the past couple of months, Zoe Matthews and Chantel Thompson led a wonderful BUBBLE project with many of our older babies. On April 16th, the children’s work will be on display as part of The Child’s Guide to the City, at Mr. Bubbles Teahouse in the Arcade. Expect to learn more in the coming weeks as our staff continue to make developmentally appropriate learning visible throughout our community.

Safety Note

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Upon pick up in the afternoons, it is important that children stay with parents until they have safely departed the building. Recently, pre-schoolers have run off from parents and made it all the way to the lobby before being escorted back to mom and/or dad. As a staff at McKendree, we enforce the rule “only grown-ups open doors” to both prevent this from happening and to make sure that the little ones playing in the atrium are not knocked down by the preschool hall door.

Thanks for your help in keeping everyone safe by making sure that your children are with you at all times.

Birthday Time: Who is Ready for a Parade?

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Time sure flies when you are having fun. This month McKendree celebrates 26 years of caring for young children and their families in downtown Nashville. We opened our doors in early April, 1990 with seventeen beautiful children and have been busy ever since.

Every year in April, and usually during the nationally recognized Week of the Young Child, we celebrate another year by throwing a party and having a parade. Yep, a parade. Metro police officers escort us around several city blocks and we circle back to the atrium where we all gather to sing happy birthday, and eat cookies before lunch (such decadence!) Please mark your calendars now for Friday, April 15th and plan to join us at 10:30 a.m.; e will head out on our adventure soon after. The whole celebration takes about 45” to an hour.

If you have a little one, bring a stroller. All of the “big kids” will walk with the security of an adult’s handholding. The police will block intersections for us and we will amaze and befuddle the passersby who try to figure out what we are up to. At least one preschooler will ask, “Where is the parade?” and be confused when we explain that WE are the parade.

Watch for a sign-up sheet on the atrium door asking for folks to bring cookies and expect parking details soon. If it rains, we will do something fun in the gym. Pray that it doesn’t rain!

License Renewal Time

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This month we are preparing for extensive audits of our day care operations. Expect a series of inspectors to be visiting to verify we meet all day care regulations. On May 4th, classrooms will be randomly selected for in depth observations for our big Assessment. Stay tuned for more on how you can help us on that stressful day.